by Julia London
What followed was excruciating. Someone inserted something cold and metallic into her that was so painful her heart had fluttered almost dead. She’d felt as if she was being ripped apart, as if someone had plunged daggers into her womb to tear her open.
And then had come that distant, faint voice, saying the baby was dead. How could her baby be dead? They’d said her baby was dead, and Bernadette had found her voice. She’d screamed.
She didn’t remember more than that. Apparently, she’d bled so profusely that she’d almost died herself. When she came to, she would wish she’d died.
It was a boy, her mother had said. A boy.
“Bernadette, for the love of God,” Rabbie said. She felt his hands on her shoulders, pulling her up. Somehow, she had sunk down onto her haunches behind that chair, still clinging to it.
Rabbie helped her around to the chair then squatted in front of her. “Is that why you ran from me? Did you think I’d turn against you if I knew?”
“I ran because I ruined your marriage. And I would ruin your life.”
Rabbie stroked her cheek with his knuckle. “You couldna ruin me, leannan. I’ve told you—you’ve resurrected me, then.”
Bernadette began to shake. She shook with the memory of her loss, with the repression of it. She shook with the desire for this man, and she shook knowing that she could never saddle him with all what had happened. She hadn’t admitted everything to him...she hadn’t really admitted everything to herself. She’d known since that happened that she couldn’t bear children, but until this moment, she hadn’t admitted to herself that it mattered. God, how it mattered. “Please, Rabbie... Please don’t do this. Just let me be.”
He might have argued with her, but there was a knock on the door, and as Rabbie rose to his feet, Frang entered. “The mounts are ready,” he announced.
* * *
THEY ARRIVED AT KILLEAVEN, four men and Bernadette, three of the men with bedrolls and muskets. Charles came out to meet them and speak to Rabbie.
Bernadette made her way inside and sat heavily in the salon, staring at nothing. She felt empty. Her heart felt as if it had turned to dust.
Charles and Rabbie came inside eventually; Charles said he would take the men to the stables and see that they had a place to sleep. He left Rabbie standing at the salon door.
Bernadette forced herself to stand on numb legs. This was it, then. They would say fare-thee-well until the end of time. Her heart had turned to dust, but there were still bits and pieces of it clinging to life, apparently, because she couldn’t look at him without feeling agony. “How I wish you would go,” she said. “I can’t bear it.”
“Bernadette, listen to me,” Rabbie said, and moved into the room. “Come with me, now. I donna care about your past, none of it. You’ll find no judgment in me, I swear it.”
“You don’t know what you are saying, Rabbie—”
“Aye, I do—”
“No, you don’t,” she said angrily, her voice suddenly strong. “You don’t know all of it!”
“Then for God’s sake, tell me.”
“Will you make me relive it? Is that the only way I can force you to leave me in peace?”
Now he looked confused. Alarmed. “Diah, relive what?”
“I’ll tell you,” she said, her vision blurring with her tears. “Prepare yourself for it, for it is not possible for you to repair it or overlook it.”
“Say it,” he said impatiently.
“I can never bear children, Rabbie. Did you hear me? Never. I can’t give you sons. I can’t fill your house with children. I am worthless.” She pressed her hands to her abdomen and bent over, squeezing her eyes shut against the rash of hot tears that threatened to fall.
“Bernadette—”
“When I lost that child, I lost the ability to bear children. I will spare you the horrifying details of it, but you must know that I am worthless to you.” She looked up.
“That doesna make you worthless—”
“Of course it does,” she said bitterly. “Don’t be a fool, Rabbie—you will want heirs. Just go, will you?”
Rabbie didn’t move. He stood rooted, staring at her, his expression incredulous and confused. Or perhaps it was revulsion she saw in him. Well, then, so be it. If she could change the truth, she would give all that she had to do it, but she couldn’t. “Please, I am begging you—just go.” She felt ill, felt like she might faint, and she turned away from him, moving unevenly to the window.
“Verra well,” he said, his voice so low she could scarcely hear him. She heard him quit the room, heard his footfalls on the stone floor, heard the door open and shut.
Apparently, Rabbie couldn’t forgive everything. Bernadette turned around, hoping that she’d somehow misheard, hoping that he was still standing before her. But he was gone.
She bolted for her room and the window, bracing against it, watching him ride down the road, away from her, his horse at a gallop. He was racing away from her. He couldn’t wait to be as far from her as he possibly could, and she didn’t blame him.
She turned from the sight of his departure and threw herself on her bed as sobs racked her body. She loved Rabbie Mackenzie. Against all odds, she’d found someone to love again, and her father was right, she’d destroyed everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RABBIE’S GRIP OF the reins had been so tight that his fingers ached. He stretched them out, then closed them, then stretched them again as he walked to the edge of the cliff.
He stood there, his hands on his waist, his mind a chaotic brew as he tried to grasp the implications of what Bernadette had told him. She was ruined for any gentleman—he could well imagine how quickly the fops and dandies in England would shun her. Most Scots would shun her, too.
In all honesty, her news had given him some pause, as well—it was one thing to accept the woman you loved had given birth to another man’s bairn. It was quite another to know the woman you loved couldn’t give you one. But nevertheless, Rabbie had heard her news and had seen her in a different light. His good opinion of her had not changed—if anything, it had made his heart ache for her.
He understood her loss. He realized that the whole of her tragedy had been as great as his, and yet, she’d managed the consequences with grace.
Hers was a sobering story, and while Rabbie was grateful to her for telling him the truth, he could not deny it had affected his earlier optimism and hope that after long last, there might be happiness for him. Because in these last days, when he’d thought of Bernadette, he’d thought of family. He’d thought of sons and daughters, of a raucous household like the one in which he’d been raised. That dream had faded somewhat.
He glanced down at the cove below. The sea was calm, and from this high above it, the water appeared to be gently lapping the shore. It was, and always had been, a safe harbor.
A safe harbor.
Rabbie suddenly realized what he had to do. He stepped away from the edge, returned to his horse and rode for Balhaire.
When he reached the bailey, he handed the horse over to a stable hand and strode into the castle. He did not go to the great hall, but went directly to the kitchen.
Fiona and Ualan were there, all right. Ualan was at a small table near the window, polishing silver. Fiona was seated on a stool, her ankles crossed and her feet swinging above the ground. She was humming as she carefully cut potatoes.
“Aye, sir?” Barabel asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
Rabbie should have been more attentive to these children, but his own pain and guilt had kept him from it. From quite a lot of life, he realized, and he was suddenly ashamed of it. He wanted to discard the hurt, toss it aside like a worn bit of plaid. He looked at the MacLeod children and thought of how desperately they needed someone. As Vivienne had said, someone to loo
k over them, to tuck them in at night.
“Can I do something for you?” Barabel asked in Gaelic.
Both children looked up then. Fiona gasped with delight. “Did you bring us sweetmeats?”
“Uist,” Barabel said, scolding the lass into silence.
“Beg your pardon, but I’d like a word with Fiona and Ualan,” Rabbie said.
Fiona didn’t wait for permission; she hopped off the stool. Ualan looked concerned. Rabbie motioned for them to come, and Ualan put his cloth down and followed Fiona as she hopped to where Rabbie stood.
Rabbie took them out into the corridor for a bit of privacy, and there, he stared down at their upturned faces, debating how to say what he wanted to convey.
He squatted before them, so that he could look them in the eye. He spoke to them in Gaelic. “We’ve something in common, did you know it? When you lost your parents, I lost my fiancée. I was to marry your Aunt Seona. Had they not gone away, we would be a family now.”
“We would?” Fiona asked. “Where did Aunt Seona go?”
“They died,” Ualan muttered to his sister in Gaelic. “They didn’t go away.”
Rabbie swallowed. “Aye, they died,” he softly agreed. He swallowed again, hard. What he was thinking was utter madness. He’d only just come out of the dark—how could he possibly be thinking what was in his heart? And yet, Rabbie blurted it all the same. “I’ve been thinking...we might have a family yet, the three of us.”
Fiona’s eyes widened with surprise and she looked at her brother.
“What I mean,” Rabbie said, pausing to draw a breath, “is that you might come to live with me at Arrandale. Would you like that?”
Fiona could scarcely contain her delight. But Ualan, the studious lad that he was, remained skeptical. “We’re to go to Inverness,” he pointed out.
“Aye, but we can change that. Would you rather go to a stranger? Or would you rather remain in the Highlands, with me?”
“I want to stay!” Fiona said.
Ualan eyed him skeptically. “Only three of us?”
“Only three of us,” Rabbie confirmed. He’d made up his mind. No matter what else, these two children needed him as much as he needed them.
“But what of Barabel?” Fiona asked.
Rabbie smiled. “We’ll visit often.”
Fiona began to bounce on her toes. “I want to live with you. What is your name?”
“Rabbie, lass. Uncle Rabbie.”
Ualan still hadn’t said anything, and Rabbie looked at him, lifting his brow in a silent question.
“Only three of us?” Ualan asked again. “That’s not a very big family.”
“No. Sometimes, families are rather small. But maybe—maybe there will be four.” He shrugged.
“Who?” Ualan persisted.
“Och, but you’re a shrewd lad,” Rabbie said, and told them about Bernadette and how he’d lost her family, too.
* * *
THE THREE OF them made the journey to Killeaven the next day. It was a bit of a slow go, as Rabbie could not ride with two children before him, and instead pulled them along in a cart behind his mount. Fiona chattered as they went along, her speech broken between Gaelic and English, the rush of words amazingly ceaseless.
Ualan remained silent. He’d been receptive to Rabbie’s suggestion—perhaps because Rabbie had finally described it as an adventure for him—but he remained reticent. Ualan was eight years old now, with very few memories of his family. But perhaps far too many memories of being an orphan in an old woman’s care. He did not come easily around to trusting adults, Rabbie noted.
When they reached Killeaven, Niall MacDonald walked out to greet them. “What’s this, then?” he asked, grinning at the children. “Have you brought us guards?”
Rabbie smiled. “Is Miss Holly about?”
“I’ve no’ seen her, no,” Niall said. “Only the footman.”
“Summon him, then.”
The footman appeared at the door in an apron and was wiping his hands on the hem of it as he walked out of the house. His gaze slid to the children, then to Rabbie. “Good day, sir.”
“Aye, good day. I’d like a word with Miss Holly, then, if you will summon her.”
“Miss Holly is unwell,” the man said, and dropped his apron, peering at Rabbie curiously.
“Summon her all the same,” Rabbie said. “It’s a matter of some importance, aye?”
“Very well,” he said, and invited them to wait in the salon.
Inside, the children wandered around the room, taking in the furnishings. “Have I ever been here?” Fiona asked.
“No,” Ualan said. He had stationed himself at the window. “You’ve naugh’ been anywhere, Fiona.”
“Is this where we shall live?” Fiona asked, and bounced onto a settee, testing it.
“No,” Rabbie said. He could hear Bernadette now—she was coming down the stairs, her steps heavy. When she walked into the salon, Rabbie was taken aback—much of her hair had been pulled from the knot at her nape and her eyes were swollen. He panicked a wee bit—he didn’t know if the children would go along with his plan with Bernadette looking such a fright. She was frightening him. “Miss Holly,” he said.
“What is...what are you doing?” she asked, her voice dull.
“Allow me to introduce Miss Fiona and Mr. Ualan MacLeod.”
“Pardon?” She turned her head to the children. Fiona had fled to Ualan’s side and they were standing very close together at the window, gaping at her. Fiona shifted, trying to move behind her brother.
Bernadette lifted her hand and tried vainly to smooth her hair. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said.
Neither of the children spoke.
She looked again at Rabbie. “I don’t understand.”
“Fiona and Ualan are the niece and nephew of Seona MacBee. They alone survived...” He hesitated and glanced at the two of them. “Whatever might have happened, aye?”
Bernadette looked at them again. She managed a smile. The children didn’t return that smile, but continued to stare at her curiously.
Now Bernadette put her back to them. “What is this about?” she whispered. “Why are they here?”
Rabbie spoke to the children in Gaelic, instructing them to remain at the window so that he might have a word with Miss Holly. Then he took Bernadette by the elbow and moved her as far from them as he could in the space of that room.
“I don’t understand!” Bernadette said again. “What are you doing, Rabbie?”
“Helping you,” he said. “You told me what happened to you, and then you banished me, aye? You didna want to hear my thoughts. You believed you knew what I’d think, you did.”
“I beg your pardon?” she exclaimed, and glanced over her shoulder at the children, then moved closer to him. “What difference can your thoughts possibly make?” she said sharply. “I don’t care what you think. I don’t want to know what you think, because there is nothing that will change what has happened or what it means.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Bernadette. I can change it.”
She snorted.
“I can change it,” he said again. “I can love you—I do love you, with all my heart, aye? And I can keep you.”
She shook her head, and Rabbie grasped her hand, pulling her closer. He leaned in and said, “If you canna bear me children, leannan, then I can bear them for you. I can give you happiness, and I will, gladly, I will. But you must believe it can be. You must believe there is another way.”
She pulled her hand free and tried to move away, but he caught her by the waist.
“You’re speaking nonsense,” she whispered harshly. “You expect me to take in children I don’t know?”
He had suspected she would react l
ike this, and he was not going to debate it with her. He strode away from her, walked to where the children were standing and kneeled down. He took each of their hands in one of his and spoke softly in Gaelic to them. “Remember what I’ve told you. Do you remember how it makes you sad that you’ve no family?”
They both nodded.
“Miss Holly is sad, too. Don’t fear her. It will be difficult at first, and she might seem frightening. But I know her—she is kind, and she’ll be kind to you.” The children glanced over his shoulder and stared at Bernadette. Neither of them seemed inclined to believe it.
“She looks wicked,” Fiona whispered.
“She’s unhappy,” Rabbie said. “She needs a friend.” He glanced at Ualan. “I need you both to befriend her.”
“I don’t like her,” Fiona whispered.
“Och, lass, you don’t know her. You didn’t know me, either, and yet you gave me a chance. I think you can do the same for her.” He looked at Ualan.
The lad shrugged.
Rabbie smiled. It was all he would get, and he tousled Ualan’s hair. “Remember our plan. I’ll come for you tomorrow evening,” he said in Gaelic, and kissed both their cheeks, then stood. “You’re Highlanders. Be brave,” he said, and with a wink, he walked away from them.
Bernadette was hugging herself, watching him warily. “What did you say? What is happening?”
“They are in need of a place to stay,” he said.
It took Bernadette a moment to understand what he was suggesting, and when she did, she panicked. “You can’t leave them here! We’re leaving!”
“You donna leave for two days—”
“But you can’t just abandon them,” she said. “It’s madness! I’m English! Do they know that?”
“Aye, they know it,” he said. “And they know to judge each person on her own merits, aye? That courtesy was no’ extended to their family, but they will extend it to you. They know no’ all Sassenach are the diabhal. You’ll show them that is true, just as you’ve shown me. Help them, Bernadette.”
Bernadette looked at the children. “No,” she said, her voice full of panic. But it was too late; Rabbie was already at the door.
